Timewalkers
by oncoming-neatly-folded-swan
Summary: The Doctor and McKenzie take a little time to chill out in the TARDIS... but something is missing, will they ever remember it? A short fluff between main "episodes".


The Doctor paced along the long winding corridors of his TARDIS. He knew he was missing something, he knew something was terribly wrong... but he couldn't figure out what. At the same time he somehow felt closer to McKenzie than he ever had before, as if the thing he was missing had something to do with their relationship.

He stopped pacing, that word swirled around inside his head. Was that what they had? Is that how they were describing it? He had meant to tell her how he felt, they sort of talked about it, but never explicitly stated. He did confess... kind of. She knew how he felt, regardless of whether he did or not. She just sort of knew, she always knew. And that kiss? He felt dizzy just thinking about it.

However, he felt bad about the circumstances; he knew she was trying not to let her emotions get to her... which was funny since she did a pretty bad job of letting everyone else's emotions get to her. She seemed to be quite good at keeping her own to herself.

He wanted to do something nice for her, make her feel more at home, so he'd decided to get to know her history. He'd been looking up her planet, specifically its culture and language. It was extremely old and dated back thousands and thousands of years. He was impressed that they'd managed to last such a long time without making a huge stir. But what intrigued him the most was some of the old words that had been integrated into their current language, specifically the word McKenzie had used to describe him. Soh'te. After a long time researching he had actually found that it didn't quite mean what she'd thought it meant.

He grinned to himself, knowing in his hearts that she was going to love the true meaning.

After wandering around aimlessly for a little while longer he found himself outside McKenzie's room. He knocked on the door.

"It's open!" she called out to him.

The Doctor took a step inside and gently closed the door behind him. The lights were dim and the air was warm and smelt like tropical fruits, the room itself was extremely messy, everything was haphazardly thrown across the floor or hanging from the various furnishings.

McKenzie came out of her bathroom wearing a comfy looking dressing gown, she was towel drying her hair. She looked a little frazzled as she made her way over to her bed, she tied back her hair and wiped her face. It was rare that he'd see her without thick black eye makeup. She looked so different, somehow even paler.

"Sorry, I overslept..." she sighed, "I know you were going to show me the migration of the tide skippers on Rannoch 6 today, but–"

"Hey come, on. Time machine, remember?" The Doctor smiled, "Anything can wait for me."

She smiled weakly.

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked, awkwardly standing in the middle of her room on the only available floor space.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." She sniffled and rubbed her eyes, "It's just..." she paused, "Never mind."

"The feeling that you're missing something, but you can't remember what?" he offered her a sympathetic head tilt.

McKenzie stared wide eyed at him, "Yeah, that's it exactly, how did you know?"

"Because I feel the same." He frowned.

"Oh... well, that's bad, isn't it? I mean, I thought it was just me... still upset about my dad, but the way we're taught to deal with it is, like, they stay with us, they live on through us... in our memories," she sighed, "Well I don't know, it sounds stupid. But I still feel him with me, even now."

"No, not at all." He sat down on her bed opposite her, "It doesn't sound stupid. I'm glad that you're feeling better."

"Thanks... But, if you're feeling that feeling too, then surely that means something bad happened? Right?"

He thought about it for a moment, something bad had definitely happened, but he also couldn't help feeling that something very good had happened as well.

"I suppose... But, I'm sure everything will be fine?"

"You think? Because I think everything is going to get very bad before it's fine again..."

"Oh, good. Because I was lying. Things are very bad."

McKenzie smirked and shared a laugh with him. He felt glad that they could laugh in the face of danger, he knew they could face anything as long as they were together.

"So what did you want to tell me? Besides that." She asked, crossing her legs and offering him her hands.

"How did you–?" he paused as she raised her eyebrow at him, "Right of course." He laughed, and sat opposite her, taking her hands in his. "Well, I've been looking into the history of your people."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, very interesting. Especially the old tongue."

"Ugh, no one calls it that anymore." McKenzie cringed.

The Doctor grinned, "Back with your family, do you remember what it was that you called me?"

"Well, yeah. I mean what, it was a week ago? We only left about a day ago."

"Less of the sass, I'm trying to be sweet here."

"Okay, okay. Go on." She grinned, gently twisting her fingers with his.

"Well, you told me the word for soul mates, right?"

"Hey, I didn't mean... I just said it to get rid of Kaydn..." she blushed.

"Well, I looked it up."

"Why?"

"I was curious."

McKenzie narrowed her eyes at him.

"I found out, that it doesn't mean exactly what you thought it meant."

"Okay...?"

"Well, at some point it was all lost in translation, from the old word Soh, meaning space as in distance to travel... and the elder words ta and te meaning time and together."

McKenzie sighed and laughed, "Elder words... Gosh you sound like my old ancient languages professor."

"Anyway, the words te and ta got mixed up a few thousand years ago."

"I'm sensing a point here somewhere."

"It literally translates to time walkers." He blurted out excitedly.

"I'm sorry?" McKenzie blinked.

"It was meant to mean those who walk through time together!"

"You're kidding?"

"Nope! It comes all the way from an ancient story about how souls across different lives find each other no matter who they've become because they've already been together over and over again, through time." He grinned and squeezed her hands.

McKenzie laughed, "Wow, that... that really is something."

"What?" he asked.

She leant forward and gently pressed a kiss to his lips.

"What was that for...?" he smiled.

"Well, it just reminded me of this story... well a legend I guess. It would have been in that book if I'd had the time to show you. But the story tells of two ancient Florrians, beings who appear throughout time at different events, disasters, huge discoveries... things like that. But they always look the same."

The Doctor laughed nervously, "That story wouldn't happen to feature a blue box would it?"

"Well... I'm sure there's still time to make history." McKenzie smirked.


End file.
